Silence and the ambience of shooting in the distance contracted the world into an uneasy feeling, nothing but a desolated field, empty with vitality and sentiment, dominated the ground as the crew walked on a thin line; cautiously checking over their shoulders, cautiously making fewer sounds, patrolling an unknown horizon next to a 300,000 wall that stands up the bloodshed hill provoked by war.

All of the soldiers maintained their role of walking in a line, checking every inch they could scramble for to find an opening to ambush the enemies from behind.

"I can't find any hills that can get us sneaking behind enemy lines." Rolthe blurted out the obvious in a composed, sluggish voice, wording every word perfectly.

"Keep searching. We'll find a way," Derton proclaimed stealthily.

"I don't think we will find a way, sir. We just jumped off that 300,000-foot cliff. It'd be a miracle to find a breakthrough on this deserted land." Smor muttered, taking a glance at his surroundings, finding it uneventful and disappointing to gaze at.

"Why are we speaking so low anyway?" Rolthe imploded, raising his voice higher as he got mean and irritated, jerking his arms up in the air in rough propulsion.

"Because some of the soldiers deployed there can hear up to sixteen miles. If they hear us casually jogging towards their post, they'd take note and alarm the rest — ending our vulnerable lives in the process." Derton countered with a strict snarl that's directed at Rolthe's current attitude.

"Let them go at it. What's going to happen if we all die anyway? The war has been going on for Aeons at this point." Rolthe concluded a morbid reality in response, decreasing the moody atmosphere.

"Do you ever shut up whining like a bitch?" Zenhu raised his voice fiercely, shifting his entire body around to trample his foot past Rolthe, almost knocking him off the balance if it wasn't for Rolthe's quick reflexes to have him dodge the obvious attempt of harm.

"I'm not whining. I'm stating the obvious, we don't have a chance of breaking through their attack." Rolthe expressed confidently, glimmering a grin at Zenhu who took the grin as a taunt.

"Then go ahead of us!" Zenhu barked.

"Can I?" Rolthe asked for Derton's approval, dragging his eyes over to a mentally exhausted Derton.

"Go ahead of us. Come back immediately if you find something critical." Derton sighed a defeated acceptance as he watched Rolthe swerve across the ground before Derton could approve and disappear into the fog that was prominent throughout the walk.

"I've never understood why you invited him into the regiment," Zenhu complained, rubbing his pointy finger and thumb across his nose bridge, illustrating his frustration.

"Stop with the badmouthing."

"Badmouthing?! What-!"

"Zenhu."

"Ugh… whatever you say." Zenhu moaned in defeat.

Zoomchard, literally in the middle of this so-called "disagreement", saw it with a perspective that he was watching disgruntled siblings whining over the most simplistic things. Even though he wasn't a part of the argument, Zoomchard saw his life get shorter as his mental health plummeted. Zoomchard never thought he'd be enrolled with angry animals rattling the cages in his entire life, but he is, encountering it first-hand.

"You'll get used to it." Menos giggled in Zoomchard's ear, catching his attention as he looked at Menos with a plain, depleted look.

"Only time will tell…"

--

"Rolthe hasn't come back yet and it's been longer than twenty minutes. Are you sure we can do this?" Smor started doubting Derton, noticing the frustration gripping Derton by the throat as his eyes furrowed sharply to express contempt.

The question went unheard, leaving the air in the doom of silence again as all quietly, undoubtedly, felt this sneaky operation was a failure as they trampled on enemy ground.

Then, out of the blue, Derton stomped his foot onto the ground, clanking a disturbance into the predator's den as he clenched his anger tight by its deepest core. Eventually slipping go of the anger, watching it perish as Derton overcame and blew out an exhale.

"This is a mistake of mine," Derton mumbled, pulling the walkie-talkie off his chest to speak to it. "Rolthe, come back-"

"Scrap that order. I've found the opening." Rolthe tittered through the scratchy radio.

"You have?" Derton replied enthusiastically.

"It took a while but we can go up the hill."

"Rolthe is not that far. He's under a mile away." Smor informed, looking at the screen in his arm that displayed a map of many green dots with one green dot a mile away from the grouped dots.

"Let's go!" Derton urged, excluding the silence strategy and fully raced through the fog. Everyone chased after Derton, cocking and loading their weapons same as Zoomchard's assault rifle. Zoomchard stumbled at first from this sudden change of mood, but ultimately caught up with the crew; spotting a speck of Rolthe came into view — waving his hands.

Seconds later, the crew met back up with Rolthe and followed Rolthe's pointing finger around to the hill, finding it was approachable to walk up from. Derton charged up the hill immediately as he thought he saw a figure move in the distance. He aimed down his sight and was about to fire the trigger at this something when he came upon a decor to his horror as he reached the top.

Bodies, decayed bodies lay scattered, clogging the area as waves of thousands of corpses, decapitated, imploded, exploded, every kind of bodies constructed the war crime right in front of Derton's eyes. These weren't any soldiers that got pushed to the side — these were residents of the villages, towns and the city that were tortured and played with viscously. Some bodies were seen with tubes torn from their bottom throughout their shoulders as the crew, sickened, walked past helplessly. Others suffered the worst fates, a portion of the stacked robots was melting like a trail of an orange glow drifting up to their bodies, succumbing their defunct eyes to a shut.

"Those sickening bastards…" Anatolfia choked, shielding her eyes.

"I will kill all of them…" Derton mumbled.

"Derton…calm down…" Menos pleaded with an anxious tone, stretching her arm out to grab Derton by the shoulder.

"I WILL KILL THEM! ARGHH!" Derton screeched in a lusting rage that finally busted out of the bubble, leaking out its negative poison. Menos shrieked as she got knocked on the ground by Derton's shove full of turmoil as he scampered through the crowds of death.

Zoomchard eyed all the males charging across the surface, fastening their touch on getting closer to enemies, while the females helped each other but he strutted still, unphased by the dismay in front of him. Zoomchard lost that anger a long time ago when he saw the atrocities of war for the first time. After all, his town was used as a corpse disposal. Zoomchard looked at Anatolfia scanning for any injuries from Menos' previous fall until he was noticed by one of them as he strolled casually through oceans of deceased lives.

"For a rookie, you seem to be not affected by these sights," Anatolfia noted as Zoomchard stood in arms reach, flicking his intoxicating cold eyes on Anatolfia.

"I'm a rookie to war, not a rookie to bodies. I saw them where I worked every hour." Zoomchard confided.

"You poor soul…" Menos whimpered, groaning as she battled to stand upright. "You're not a rookie at war though." Menos chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.

Zoomchard didn't want to respond to that. He just blazed at his hands, checking the insides of the palm as he believed the statement Menos said in an attempt to compliment Zoomchard didn't exist truthfully. He knows there's a great side to him but most of it is made of amateur roots — just now, for example, Zoomchard stood back and didn't take charge, something inside him didn't flare intensely like the other robots; he just felt occupied with a dilemma that he hasn't found out about its justification yet.

"We might as well get going. The boys might need our help." Menos gleamed, both Anatolfia and Zoomchard simply nodded to her voice and followed her through the barriers between death and peace.

--

"There they are!" Anatolfia suddenly shouted, picking up the pace to close on Derton and the rest of the males. Zoomchard detected Derton, Smor, Zenhu, and Rolthe camped up behind a wall, reloading their guns. Like animal instincts, Zoomchard readied his weapon and investigated the area around the place the males were postponed at.

"DO NOT LET THE BASTARDS REST!" Derton dictated, still raging on as Zoomchard mounted his sniper on the same wall the males were hiding behind and peeked through the scope, seeing it had x-ray built into it as Zoomchard counted a lot of heads through a buffer of fog.

"1…2…3…4…5…" Zoomchard counted the heads he released his finger on the trigger to, grunting to the strong knockback of the sniper but gradually getting used to it as it fired through the heads of five Eithrem clones, perishing their lives.

"Good job, Zoomchard!" Derton patted Zoomchard on the back, showing his sincere compliment.

"There are only four bullets left for this sniper," Zoomchard advised Derton, keeping his eye gawking through the scope.

"Find any sort of explosive. If there's truitz laying around in truitz tanks, shoot at it." Derton explained.

"Ok…" Zoomchard whispered, scanning for any signs of truitz tanks and finally found one being used by a soldier. The 10-Gannon tank poured out the orange liquid and the clone was using that liquid to stay hydrated as they drank the flow of the orange truitz.

"Found it. A perfect spot as well." Zoomchard mumbled, releasing the trigger to fire a bullet towards the tank, which directly pierced through the middle and a chain of combustion shortly pursued before a mist of an explosion, touching thirteen feet high, erupted its surrounding areas and plunged nearby enemy soldiers into shattered pieces as the fire rose from the ground.

"CHARGE!!"

In a swift execution, Zoomchard lunged the sniper over his shoulders, slid his body across the wall, catching his landing, and charged into the fire of unorganised enemies. Zoomchard pulled out his assault rifle and unloaded a hail of bullets onto the target he was aiming at, hoping these bullets hit a few of them. Eithrem soldiers were left bamboozled on what to do as they scrambled around like ants lost in direction, being met with a bullet through their foreheads afterwards.

There wasn't a break between this charge, the group took all that they had in them and ran through flocks of bullets, yearning to survive in the hectic scenario they found themselves upon by Derton's unleashed bitterness. Zoomchard, knowing he was low on ammo, jumbled the gun so he would hold the end of the barrel, hurled it at a charging Eithrem soldier — watched it smash into the hostile's face, then jumped up in the air, positioning himself as he contacted with the hostile, colliding his foot on the hostile's chest, then slammed them on the ground; smashing through the chest that spat out orange liquid on Zoomchard's legs and the hips.

"Disgusting…"

"Watch out!" Anatolfia's voice shouted from the distance as she came into view, using her body as a force to knock over an Eithrem soldier that was about to fire at Zoomchard. After smacking the enemy onto the ground, Anatolfia raised her right leg upwards and slammed it onto the enemy's head, cracking the head that killed the soldier in an instant.

"Thanks…" Zoomchard stammered.

"No problem," Anatolfia grinned at Zoomchard, patting his shoulder before going on to attack more enemy soldiers.

"Why do they keep doing that…?" Zoomchard questioned himself, locking his eyes on Anatolfia distracted in a close combat battle, tightly clenching his fists until he felt a snap mentally. Zoomchard looked around him and saw the trail of beaten to death soldiers, demeaning the grim atmosphere of storms of fire smearing the clouds that were toughening around the edges from pressure and burden. Zoomchard looked at every comrade in their world of battles, quarrelling desperately to overtake Eithrem's strongest headquarters to change the direction of the war.

"Is this even helping us?" Zoomchard asked as he calmly strikes at an Eithrem soldier, ripping out its wires from its hips to use the same wires to strangle the soldier to death. "How do they stay positive during these times?" Zoomchard murmured, easily dodging a punch, then punched the enemy back and doubled the punch the enemy tried hitting Zoomchard until the enemy fell back.

"Why do you carry on…?" Zoomchard quietly asked the struggling Eithrem soldier that was embarrassingly losing a battle to a short robot that effortlessly devastated them. The cloned robot didn't utter a word, it just endlessly resisted Zoomchard's attack, fighting a wall it was unaware of. Zoomchard watched the soldier squabble underneath him as Zoomchard sat on top with an extinct stare before he snatched both of the enemy's arms.

Once Zoomchard paralysed the robot's onslaught, Zoomchard twirled his body backwards, tightening his grip on the arms that were beginning to rip away from the robot's socket. More pulling and pulling until the arms finally frayed from the sockets and sprouted out pools of orange liquid that caressed the robot's painful screech as more of the orange liquid spewed from inside of the sockets, sketching the ground orange. Zoomchard felt different like he saw himself in the mirror cracking into fragile bits, and saw the blue flames falter into yellow flames. Zoomchard thought it was just the surroundings discreetly affecting him, but the more it grew, it felt like a radiant beam grew over Zoomchard, influencing him to act this way.

"Hey, Derton…look," Menos clasped, tapping Derton on the shoulder to get his attention. Derton looked at Menos then glanced in the direction Menos was pointing at — finding one of his soldiers, Zoomchard, gently scanned the decapitated robot's body, stood up, stepped back to be at the feet, grabbed the legs and ripped them off.

Derton stood disgusted.

"Zoomchard! That's a war crime!" Derton yelled as he ran over to Zoomchard to caution him. But, just as he started running, a flash in the sky caught his attention before a boom of a shockwave transpired that pushed Derton back into a defence method as he skidded across the ground, forming sparks underneath his feet to withstand the shockwave that came out of nowhere; surging the ground into a clouded mess.

"What a pitiful picture," Intoned a growling devilish voice, not that far from a back smacked Derton, whose eyes widened intensively on the silhouette of a tall spiky figure. "How does a regiment of 10,000 hard-trained soldiers get overwhelmed by seven mere soldiers?" Asked the shadow with a pungent tone. The contact of this figure lulled the scattered fighting and kept the area on the edge of their emotions as the figure now monopolized the situation than Derton's comrades formerly did.

"Die, you piece of a shit wimp!" Rolthe shrieked, scurrying into view as he charged at the spiky shadow, strengthening his punch as Rolthe loaded it back as he got closer.

"No, Rolthe!" Derton panicked, left helpless as Rolthe was already too close to the figure. Rolthe jumped up in the air, securing a punch that was going to perfectly land on the shadow's face, screaming gibberish. Just when Rolthe felt he was about to hit the shadow, the shadow evaporated and Rolthe saw himself teleport onto the ground, sensing a strong pain around his neck.

"How is a punch going to help?" The shadow taunted as he clutched his hands around Rolthe's neck, pulling him up to get a good look. Rolthe gagged, finding it hard as he loosely punched the arm that caught him, none of the punches came across to affect the shadow, so Rolthe tried kicking to get out of the situation but the shadow caught hold of Rolthe's leg and bent it inwards, snapping it as a crack evaded into the motionless air.

"Argh!" Rolthe's voice echoed in pain, stressing Derton as the corner of his eyes moistened.

"I was trying to have a chat with the 'most notorious regiment' to contact the leader of the QUdesnk Alliance. Maybe try and have a comfortable chat to sign a ceasefire for ten years. But, like usual, he sends his lackey, his little brother, instead because the leader always crawls away in fear." The shadow ridiculed, swinging Rolthe left and right like he was a toy.

"Y-You're a scum, Khunex… Nobody will want to talk to a devil." Rolthe squeezed out in distress, showing substance signs that he was going to pass out from his eyes that popped out of the sockets, watering up in red.

"That insulted me…" Khunex replied steadily, situating Rolthe down on the side of his hip on the ground while Khunex still had his fingers coated around Rolthe's strained neck. Rolthe tried escaping but screamed in agony when Khunex stomped his big foot down onto Rolthe's hip three times, crippling Rolthe's lower half as drizzles of cracking played.

"I wish I could rip you in half, but being crippled for the rest of your life by your attacker is a far worse fate." Khunex grinned devilishly. "Just to make sure you're crippled-"

"No, no! Stop! That's enough!" Derton pleaded repeatedly, hopeless as his legs refused to cooperate.

"Oh, your leader is pleading for your life." Khunex laughed in Rolthe's ear, using his other hand to grab Rolthe's right foot and effortlessly crunched the leg together that was bewildered by Rolthe's deafening cry as he watched his right leg bend and crunch into the shape of a ball, traumatised and left hopeless while his body twitched aggressively to the horde of premature pain. The screams of Rolthe abruptly stopped after Rolthe passed out from the pain he experienced as he lay limp and thrown away by Khunex who now focused on Zoomchard, who stood calm and rested, glimmering his eyes directly at Khunex; showing no fear amid the smoke.

"The only one who wouldn't be scared, but remained standing, doing nothing to aid his fallen comrade, could only be you…Zoomchard." Khunex snickered, turning his body fully around to stay attentive to Zoomchard's cold glare.

"It's always been you…standing afar…"

"Standing like a mannequin…"